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SOME FACTS 

ABOUT THE PROPOSED 

DISMEMBERMENT OF HUNGARY 



With a Map, Statistical Table and 
Two Appendices 



By 

EUGENE PIVANY 

Author of 
Hungarians in the American Civil War, etc. 



Hungarian American Federation 

404-406 Superior Building 
Cleveland, Ohio 

1919 






SOME FACTS 

ABOUT THE PROPOSED 

DISMEMBERMENT OF HUNGARY 

The former Kingdom of Hungary — the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, 
as it was called in the terminology of public law — consisted of Hungary proper 
and Croatia-Slavonia. The Croatians had been recognized as a separate nation, 
and enjoyed a high degree of home rule which, however, did not satisfy them, 
their aspirations being for complete independence from the Hungarian Crown. 
After the revolution of October 30, 1918, the Government of the new demo- 
cratic Republic of Hungary freely acknowledged the independence of Croatia, 
and only wanted the rights of the Hungarian minority in Croatia protected 
and free access to the sea assured. On the following pages I shall deal, there- 
fore, only with Hungary proper, without Croatia. 

This Hungary proper covers a territory of 109,216 square miles, and her 
boundaries have not appreciably changed during the last thousand years. 
This is not a mere accident, but is due to the working- of natural laws which 
cannot be infringed with impunity. 

Geographically her territory is the most compact in Europe, as a glance 
at the map will show. 

Hydrographically the country belongs to one river system, there being- 
only three small rivers which do not join the Danube or its tributaries within 
her boundaries. 

Economically the different sections of the country are interdependent, 
each section having a surplus of things which the other sections cannot pro- 
duce. Separately they cannot exist, together they form a splendid self-sup- 
porting organism. 

Racially the Hungarian or Magyar race predominates, making up more 
than one-half of the total population and being numerically more than three 
times as strong as the next race in numbers, the Rumanians. Its predom- 
inance, however, has been due not to mere numbers, but mainly to the fact 
that it has founded, built up and maintained the Hungarian State for a thou- 









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sand years, and put a distinctly Magyar stamp on the civilization of the whole 
country. 

The central plains of Hungary are populated almost wholly by the Mag- 
yars. Towards the peripheries their numbers diminish, although right on the 
Hungarian-Rumanian border there are three counties almost entirely Magyar. 
But they are present everywhere, and in the peripheries the various races are 
so intermingled that it is impossible to cut out large territories on a racial 
basis without incorporating large minorities of other races which, of course, 
object to such incorporation. 

The dismemberment of Hungary has been proposed in order to secure the 
right of self-determination of small nations. The perusal of the statistical 
table and of the map attached to this pamphlet will easily convince everybody 
open to conviction that the claims put forward by the imperialistic neighbors 
of Hungary and apparently approved at Paris, cannot be justified on the basis 
of that principle. On the contrary, those claims are direct denials of the right 
of self-determination, for in each of the sections claimed by the three neigh- 
boring countries the particular race claiming it is in the minority. Neither is 
it in accord with the facts that by the proposed dismemberment of Hungary 
the Magyar race would be confined to its ethnic limits, for in the territories to 
be wrested from Hungary the Magyars would have a very large plurality and, 
together with the Ger\man element, would form a majority. The ethnic limits 
of the Magyar race are hard to define; they certainly reach beyond the bound- 
aries of Hungary into Rumania and Croatia. 

The Rumanians claim nearly one-half of the territory of Hungary, twenty- 
six counties out of sixty-three, with a total population of nearly seven mil- 
lions, out of which not quite three millions, or 43 per centum, are Rumanians, 
and many of them are disinclined to be ruled by the boyars, as the junkers 
of Rumania are called. In the fifteen counties of Transylvania ( South-Eastern 
Hungary) the Rumanians have indeed a bare majority, but it is right there 
on the south-eastern border that large contiguous territories are peopled by 
Szekely Magyars and Saxon settlers. 

In practically all the towns of ten thousand and over the Magyars are in 
the majority, and in the few instances in which they are not, the majority is 
German. Yet the Rumanians claim such important Magyar cities as Maros- 
Vasarhely, Nagyvarad, Szatmar, Arad, and — last, but not least — Kolozsvar, 
the capital of Transylvania. Kolozsvar, the Precious (Kineses Kolozsvar), as 
the Hungarians love to call it, is a beautiful city full of historical associations 
dear to the hearts of all Hungarians; it has a university, several colleges, 
museums and libraries, it is the centre of the Unitarian Church in Hungary, 
and a commercial emporium as well. All that has been created by the Magyars 
through the work of centuries. The Rumanians have had no part in it, con- 
stituting only one per centum of the population and, with a few exceptions, 
being employed there to perform menial work. 

It is also to be borne in mind that Hungary has been the eastern bulwark 
of Western Christianity and, particularly, of Protestantism. East and South 



of Hungary there is no Protestantism, and hardly any Roman Catholicism. 
In Rumania (as also in Servia) the Greek Orthodox Church is the state 
church, and creed and race go there together. The religious intolerance of 
the Rumanians is notorious, and the extension of their rule over a large part 
of Hungary would ruin the colleges, seminaries and other educational institu- 
tions of the Presbyterians, Lutherans and Unitarians, in fact, it would 
endanger the very existence of those churches. In the twenty-six counties 
claimed by Rumania there are twenty-five colleges connected with the Protest- 
ant churches, and among the Protestant population of those regions 78.2% 
can read and write, the corresponding figure among the adherents of the 
Greek Churches being only 34.9%. Yet the Hungarian Government has paid 
(in 1917) the Rumanian ecclesiastical and educational establishments in Hun- 
, gary subsidies closely approximating fifteen millions Crowns (three million 
dollars), while an equal number of Presbyterians — an almost purely Magyar 
community- — received only eleven million Crowns. 

It is an admitted fact that the Rumanian people of Hungary are on a 
much higher level of civilization both as to literacy and to wealth than their 
brethren in the Kingdom of Rumania, where they surely cannot complain of 
racial oppression. The same applies, even in a higher degree, to the Servian 
people of Hungary as compared with the people in the Servian Kingdom. 

The claims of Servia to Hungarian territory rest on a still more slender 
basis than those of Rumania. Apart from the fact that the Servians of Hun- 
gary are descendants of refugees who had found there an asylum against 
Turkish oppression, they form only a small minority of the population of the 
regions claimed. Their claim embraces 15,829 square miles with a population 
of nearly three millions, of whom only 427,876, or 14.5%, are Servians, and 
113,822, or 3.8%, are Croatians. Even if we suppose all the smaller races 
collected in the census under the heading of "others" to be Shokatses, Bunye- 
vatses and Slovenes, races kindred to the Servians, the total of all Yugoslavs 
in the regions claimed would be less than 25%. 

Both Rumania and Servia have been very much behind Hungary in all 
that counts for civilization, as a comparison of the educational and economical 
statistics of the three countries plainly shows. To extend the notorious polit- 
ical methods of the Balkan over more than one-half of Hungary, to further 
"Balkanize," so to say, Eastern Europe, would be a step not forward, but 
backward on the road to true democracy. Deputy Radio, a Croatian and a 
strong hater of everything Magyar, made in effect the same statement, as 
quoted in the Paris Temps of February 18, 1919, and reprinted in The Nation, 
New York, March 22, 1919. He said: 

"Our geographical situation, our orientation toward Hungary — a Euro- 
pean state — make us federalists in order not to become dependent upon the 
Balkans, which are, whatever one may say, an extension of Asia. Our duty is 
to Europeanize these Balkans and not to Balkanize the Croatians and Slov- 
enians." 



The Czech claims, as originally formulated, were based on the principle 
of race, and comprised only that part of Northern Hungary in which the 
Slovak people were numerically predominating. Even that was contrary to 
the right of self-determination, for the majority of the Slovak people of Hun- 
gary want no union with the Czechs. They said so openly in their national 
meeting held at Kassa in December last, declaring that the Slovaks are a nation 
free and independent from both Bohemia and Hungary, but recognizing the 
force of economical laws they would be willing to enter into a federation with 
the rest of Hungary. 

Later, however, the Czechs threw the ethnic principle overboard and in- 
creased their demands so as to join hands in the Northeast with the Ruman- 
ians, and in the West, by setting up a "corridor," with the Yugoslavs, no 
matter what foreign races they would have to incorporate in their new empire. 
Thus the remainder of Hungary would be surrounded by an iron ring of Slavs 
and Rumanians, and cut off from direct communication with Western Europe. 
The Czechs claim from Hungary now a territory of 25,540 square miles with 
a total population of over four millions, of whom only 1,653,341, or 40.5 per 
centum, are Slovaks, hardly more than the Magyars in the same regions. 

They, too, want to incorporate in their new empire a number of important 
Magyar cities, such as Pozsony and Kassa, for instance, both being Hungarian 
university towns and the centers of culture and trade for large regions. These 
two cities are also rich in historical associations, the former having been the 
seat of the Hungarian Diet for centuries, where many kings of Hungary had 
been crowned, and the latter having been prominently connected with the war 
of liberation led by Francis Rakoczi whose earthly remains rest there in the 
beautiful old cathedral. The Slovak element in these, and many other, towns 
is almost negligible. 

Should all the claims be satisfied, there would remain to Hungary only 
24,605 square miles {out of 109,216) with a population of 5,509,168 {out of 
18,264,533). Less than one-half (4,925,971) of the Magyars would belong to 
this "Netv Hungary," while the larger half of the race (5,018,656) would have 
to live in foreign countries or be forced to emigrate from what had been their 
homes for many centuries. 

Losing practically all of her timber, coal, minerals, salt and natural gas, 
the "New Hungary" would be deprived of every possibility of industrial life. 
She would lose nearly all of her heavy industry and a very considerable part 
of her textile industry to Czecho-Slovakia and Rumania, and, with no natural 
boundaries and no outlet to the sea, would be at the mercy of her imperialistic 
neighbors. 

It is evident that a settlement wrought with such crying iniquity could 
not lead to the solution of the East European question, and must inevitably 
sow the seeds of a new war. If, in accordance with President Wilson's an- 
nouncement that no territory shall be shifted from the sovereignty of one state 
to that of another without the consent of the majority of the people, plebiscites 
should be taken in the regions claimed, the results of such plebiscites could 
not be doubtful, provided they be carried out under fair conditions, for instance 
under American control. 



It is exactly this what the annexationists seem to fear, and this fear may 
partly account for the intimidation, persecution, and, in some instances, shock- 
ing cruelty and murder, to which the Servian, Rumanian and Czech armies of 
occupation have been subjecting all those who were not willing to submit to 
foreign rule. 

Surely, some way ought to be, and can be, found to reconcile the just 
claims of race with the laws of history, geography and political economy. The 
plan advanced, and partly put into execution (in the case of the Ruthenians 
of Hungary), by the government headed by Count Karolyi is well worth con- 
sidering. It was a proposition to make a Switzerland of the East out of Hun- 
gary, to give local autonomy to each race, while a common parliament and a 
central government would manage financial, commercial, military and foreign 
affairs. 

The dismemberment of Hungary, on the other hand, would leave a legacy 
of hatred and revenge in the hearts of the Magyars, which would be trans- 
mitted as a sacred inheritance from father to son and create a new in-edentism 
more intensive than any hitherto known. 

In closing this presentation of facts, I wish to state that the statistical 
data used in this paper were compiled from the Hungarian Census of 1910, 
there being no later figures to go by. Since the charge has repeatedly been 
made — without producing any proof — that the Hungarian statistics is unre- 
liable, and that the returns as to the mother tongue, or nationality, had been 
falsified to favor the Magyar race, some authentic information on the subject 
is submitted in Appendix B. 

In Appendix A are presented the views of a few prominent American and 
British public men on the Hungarian question. These views are well worth 
reading and pondering, not only because they are the views of persons endowed 
with superior intellectual powers, but also because they had been arrived at, 
and expressed, before the evil passions of hatred and revenge engendered by 
the great war dimmed the vision of a considerable part of mankind, and before 
our press and the book market has been flooded with cheap propaganda 
literature. 



APPENDIX A. 
EXCERPTS FROM STATEMENTS OF AMERICAN AND BRITISH 

PUBLIC MEN. 

In June, 1849, when Hungary, under the leadership of Louis Kossuth was 
battling heroically against fearful odds for freedom and independence, Presi- 
dent Zachary Taylor appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann, of Virginia, "special 
and confidential agent to Hungary," and instructed him to report on conditions 
in that country with the view of acknowledging its independence. However, 
the dispatching of the American agent was of no assistance to Hungary 
which, abandoned by the Western Powers, had to succumb to the combined 
attacks of the two greatest military powers of the age, Austria and Russia. 

In his message, dated March 28, 1850, transmitting the correspondence 
relating to Mann's mission to the Senate, President Taylor wrote as follows: 

"My purpose, as freely avowed in this correspondence, was to have acknowledged 
the independence of Hungary had she succeeded in establishing a government de facto 
on a basis sufficiently permanent in its character to have justified me in doing so, 
according to the usages and settled principles of this Government, and although she 
is now fallen, and many of her gallant patriots are in exile or in chains, I am free still 
to declare that had she been successful in the maintenance of such a government as 
we could have recognized, we should have been the first to welcome her into the 
family of nations." 

As Congressman Henry J. Steele, of Pennsylvania, recently said in a pub- 
lic speech, had Hungary then not been abandoned to her fate, the development 
of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe would have taken a different 
turn, and it would not have been necessary in 1917 "to make the world safe 
for democracy" by a sanguinary war. 

The American agent sent to Hungary also felt that the abandonment of 
Hungary at that critical juncture was a fatal mistake. In his report to Wash- 
ington, dated Vienna, September 27, 1849, he said: 

"In not formally expressing her disapproval of the policy avowed in the manifesto 
of Nicholas of 14th May last, Great Britain either misconceived the nature of the 
obligations imposed upon her as the most liberal and enlightened of the European 
powers or was ignorant of the principles and interests involved in the issue. Had she 
proclaimed in emphatic language within twenty-four hours after this manifesto reached 
Downing street that she was prepared to resist an armed intervention by any power 
adverse to Hungary, the Czar would scarcely have had the temerity to march his army 
across his frontiers. The deplorable omission of such duty changes completely the 
relations of power in European states." 

Autocracy having been victorious, Louis Kossuth, the champion of Euro- 
pean democracy, was interned in Asia Minor. In 1851 he was liberated, 
mainly through the efforts of Daniel Webster, and brought to the United States 
in a national vessel as the guest of the nation. 

Daniel Webster, then secretary of state for the second time, whose cele- 
brated Hiilsemann letter had nearly led to war with Austria on account of 



Hungary, was the principal American speaker at the congressional banquet 
tendered in honor of Kossuth in Washington, January 5, 1852. 

"It is remarkable" — he said in the course of his speech — "that, on the Western 
coasts of Europe, political light exists. There is a sun in the political firmament, 
and that sun sheds his light on those who are able to enjoy it. But in eastern Europe, 
generally speaking, and on the confines between eastern Europe and Asia, there is no 
political sun in the heavens. It is all an arctic zone of political life. The luminary, 
that enlightens the world in general, seldom rises there above the horizon. The light 
which they possess is at best crepuscular, a kind of twilight, and they are under the 
necessity of groping about to catch, as they may, any stray gleams of the light of day. 
Gentlemen, the country of which your guest tonight is a native is a remarkable excep- 
tion. She has shown through her whole history, for many hundreds of years, an 
attachment to the principles of civil liberty, and of law and of order, and obedience 
to the constitution which the will of the great majority have established. That is the 
fact, and it ought to be known wherever the question of the practicability of Hun- 
garian liberty and independence are discussed. It ought to be known that Hungary 
stands out from it above her neighbors in all that respects free institutions, constitu- 
tional government, and a hereditary love of liberty. 

"Gentlemen, my sentiments in regard to this effort made by Hungary are here 
sufficiently well expressed. In a memorial addressed to Lord John Russell and Lord 
Palmierston, said to have been written by Lord Fitzwilliam, and signed by him and 
several other Peers and members of Pai'liament, the following language is used, the 
object of the memorial being to ask the mediation of England in favor of Hungary: 

'While so many of the nations of Europe have engaged in revolutionary move- 
ments, and have embarked in schemes of doubtful policy and still more doubtful suc- 
cess, it is gratifying to the undersigned to be able to assure your lordships that the 
Hungarians demand nothing but the recognition of ancient rights and the stability and 
integrity of their ancient constitution. To your lordships it cannot be unknown that 
that constitution bears a striking family resemblance to that of our own country.' " 



"Gentlemen, the progress of things is unquestionably onward. It is onward with 
respect to Hungary. It is onward everywhere. Public opinion, in my estimation at 
least, is making great progress. It will penetrate all resources, it will come more or 
less to animate all minds, and in respect to that country, for which our sympathies 
tonight have been so strongly invoked, I cannot but say that I think the people of 
Hungary are an enlightened, industrious, sober, well-inclined community, and I wish 
only to add, that I do not now enter into any discussion of the form, of government 
which may be proper for Hungary. Of course, all of you, like myself, would be glad 
to see her, when she becomes independent, embrace that system of government which 
is most acceptable to ourselves. We shall rejoice to see our American, model upon the 
Lower Danube, and on the mountains of Hungary. But that is not the first step. 
It is not that which will be our first prayer for Hungary. That first prayer shall be, 
that Hungary may become independent of all foreign power, that her destinies may 
be entrusted to her own hands, and to her own discretion. I do not profess to under- 
stand the social relations and connections of races, that may affect the public institu- 
tions of Hungary. All I say is, that Hungary can regulate these matters for herself 
infinitely better than they can be regulated for her by Austria, and therefore I limit 
my aspirations for Hungary, for the present, to that single and simple point: 

Hungarian independence, Hungarian control of Hungarian destinies, and Hungary 
as a distinct nationality among the nations of Europe." 

But let us turn to more recent utterances of authors still living. Mr. 
Archibald R. Colquhoun in his book entitled The Whirlpool of Europe, pub- 
lished by Dodd, Mead & Co. in 1914, (which is by no means too friendly to 



10 



Hungary) wrote under the caption Slav and Magyar as follows: 

"Although modified in appearance, in customs, and in character by the people 
they have assimilated, the Magyars have retained, throughout all vicissitudes, an 
extraordinary homogeneity. Hungary has been a sovereign nation and a kingdom 
since 1000 A. D., and has never owned allegiance to any monarch who has not been 
affirmed and crowned by her Estates. Moreover, the Hungarian is the only complete 
nation under the Austrian Crown. Even Bohemia, claiming similar historic rights, 
does not occupy the same position. Her people are not intact; Czechs are living under 
Prussian rule, Czech territory has been reduced by the conquest of neighboring states. 
Moreover, there is within Bohemia a second nation, the Germans, with equal rights 
to the Czechs. Their position is therefore constitutionally different from that of 
Hungary as a free sovereign state and nation. The rest of the peoples under Austrian 
rule are detached fragments of nations, remnants of ancient states." 

In the chapter on Hungary and the Hungarians Mr. Colquhoun continues : 

"The Magyars, as said already, occupy a unique position in the dual monarchy, 
not only politically but racially, because they are an entire and homogeneous nation. 
The undeniable fact that they are by no means a pure race, but have assimilated 
other peoples, and have undergone physical and mental modifications in consequence, 
does not detract from their position. Like the United States (on a much larger scale) 
this little nation has been strong enough to stamp its individuality on alien peoples." 



"It is stated that it is better for a stranger to address the middle and lower class 
people in French or English first, not with the expectation of being understood, but 
as a passport to favor, after which he may get the desired information in German. 
Although this is mainly the result of a policy of Magyarisation, there is an element at 
work in producing it which is more than mere State policy or compulsion. It is 
agreed by many foreigners living in Hungary that there is a contagion about the 
nationalist aspiration which is almost irresistible. In no country in the world are 
there to be seen so many divers races making one (despite local jealousies) in their 
support of Hungarian national tradition, and all are as vehement in their advocacy of 
Hungarian independence as the Magyars themselves. Jews and Germans swell with 
patriotic pride over their "ancient constitution," and more than one instance could be 
cited of Hungarian patriots (some well known as the exponents of the Magyars to 
Europe) who have not one drop of Magyar blood. 

"The contagion, the attraction, are in the Magyar people themselves, and surely 
in this magic quality lies the secret of their success. The magnetic force they exercise 
is doing work which mere coercion or manoeuvering could not accomplish. Elements 
of weakness, of unevenness, and of danger there are, but the core of the matter, the 
character of the true Magyar, is not only sound, but is displaying that most valuable 
and intangible of qualities — the power of attraction and assimilation." 

But the standard book on Hungary is The Political Evolution of the Hun- 
garian Nation, by the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen, published in two vol- 
umes by The National Review Office, London, in 1908, which no one who wants 
to judge the case of Hungary intelligently can afford not to know. 

German scholars have a reputation for thoroughness in research work, 
not even the most insignificant details escaping their attention in collecting 
material. But it takes an Englishman (or a Frenchman) to sift the essential 
from the non-essential and present the often contradictory evidence in a way 
which will not confuse the reader. It is this rare gift of clear vision and 
sober judgment, which makes the work of the Hon. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen 
so valuable. 



11 



map y Hll 

Showing Proposed 




ismeraberment. 



Claimed by Czechs 
claimed by Romania. 
^ Claimed by Servia. 

In dispute Between 5ervia 
and Rumania, 




The following quotations are from the first and the last chapter of his 
book. 

"The Hungarian Constitution, which has been obscured at intervals, violated at 
times, and suspended for a period, only to prove its indestructibility, is the product 
of no charter or fundamental statute, but is the result of a slow process of develop- 
ment, of a combination of statute and customary law which finds its nearest parallel 
in Great Britain. It is remarkable that two such different races should have pro- 
ceeded on such similar lines as the Anglo-Saxon and the Asiatic people, which, both 
as regards language and primitive institutions, introduced an entirely new element 
into Europe. The four blows with the sword directed, at his coronation, to the four 
cardinal points, by every Hungarian king down to Francis Joseph are an emblem and 
a recognition of the fact that the Magyar people has had to maintain itself by force of 
arms against the unceasing attacks of alien neighbors; and the fact that a few thou- 
sand wanderers from Asia were able to preserve their individuality and institutions 
in the midst of an ocean of Slavs, Germans, and Turks, and obtained comparatively 
quickly a position of equality with members of the European family, argues the posses- 
sion of exceptional military and political qualities, of exceptional cohesiveness, of a 
stoical capacity for endurance, and of a rooted confidence in themselves and in their 
future which no vicissitudes of fortune have been able to destroy. The alien jargon 
first heard by European ears twelve hundred years ago has maintained its existence 
in spite of the competition of German and Slav dialects, of deliberate discouragement 
and temporary neglect, and has developed into a language which, for fulness and ex- 
pressiveness, for the purpose of science as well as of poetry, is the equal if not the 
superior of the majority of European tongues. Palacky, the great Czech historian, 
expressed the opinion that 'the invasion and definite establishment of the Magyars is 
one of the most important events in the world's history. Slavdom never received a 
more fatal blow during its existence of several thousand years. It extended in the 
ninth century from the borders of Holstein to the Peloponnesus .... and the Mag- 
yar by driving a wedge into the heart of the state in process of formation destroyed 
it, and therewith all the hopes of the Slavs.' A people which has rendered such serv- 
ices to the cause of European equilibrium 1 , which stood for centuries as the antemurale 
clypeusque Christianitatis between the Turk and the Western nations, and has shown 
such vitality and persistency in the past, is the chief defensive force to be reckoned 
with in the future should, as some fear, a graver danger arise to the balance of power 
in Eastern Europe than was ever presented by the spectre of Panslavism." 

"British public opinion has, apparently, arrived at the conclusion that the Magyars 
are consistently guilty of the employment of methods of barbarism in their treatment 
of subordinate races. Trial by newspaper, condemnation without investigation, are 
such labor-saving processes that their employment is naturally popular, more espe- 
cially when the means of forming a considered opinion are not easily accessible. The 
Magyars are themselves largely to blame for the fact that judgment has been allowed 
to be passed on them, on the ex parte statements of self-interested agitators and of 
humanitarian philosophers, and that they are left to console themselves with the con- 
viction that the abuse of which they are made the target is begotten of ignorance of 
actual facts, of past history, and of the vital considerations of national expediency. 
The problem presented by the persistence of minor nationalities is not confined to 
Hungary, but affects a large part of Europe, from Ireland to Bessarabia, and the 
measure of the abuse lavished by the spectator of the process of absorption, which 
is going on as slowly and as surely now as in the past, is in inverse proportion to the 
magnitude of the absorbing nation. What Russia has done with impunity, would 
have evoked the thunders of EXeter Hall if perpetrated by a weaker country. Wfeschen 
passes almost unperceived, while a petty Slovak village earns European notoriety 
through the disturbances resulting from the dismissal of a disorderly priest. The 
Irishman and the Pole have a recent historical basis for their claims to independent 
existence, as well as the justification of antiquity, which is wanting in the case of 
the fragmentary nationalities of Hungary. 

"The aboriginal population of what is now Hungary — scattered, incohesive tribes 
incapable of resisting Magyar arms, or, later, Magyar civilization — died out or was 

_ 



absorbed by the superior race. The process of civilization was purely Magyar. The 
development of governmental institutions proceeded along purely Magyar lines, and 
bore hardly a trace of either Slav, or, save for the fact that Latin was the literary 
medium, of Western influence. As we have seen, the mass of the existing nationalities 
was imported, or filtered into, the country long after it had received a permanent 
Magyar stamp — desirable or undesirable aliens, who, in most cases, repaid the hos- 
pitality they received by lending themselves to the disruptive policy of the Habsburgs. 
The disappearance or absorption of the aborigines was due, not to fire or sword or 
violent compulsion, but to the essential superiority of the Magyar nation, so convinced 
of that superiority that it never saw the necessity of magyarising races which, in 
early days, having no conscious feeling of individuality, would have been as wax to 
receive the permanent impress of Magyar nationality. The gates were opened wide to 
European culture from the time of St. Stephen, whose maxim, regnum unius linguae 
uniusque moris debile et imbecille, shows his recognition of the fact that the only 
language and civilization which had hitherto counted for anything in Hungary was 
the Magyar, as well as his appreciation of the benefits derivable from contact with 
the West. There is no approximately pure race in Europe except the Basque, the 
Jews, and the Gypsies, but there are many countries in which the factors have existed 
which produce the fusion of heterogeneous elements into a single nation — common 
recollection of dangers surmiounted, comimon religion, and common civilization. Such 
factors were largely wanting in Hungary. The dangers surmounted were surmounted 
by the Magyars, who alone did the fighting, the bearing of arms in defense of the 
fatherland being the privilege of the nobility. There was no common history, for 
history was made solely by the Magyars. There was no community of religion, as St. 
Stephen turned to Rome for the national religion instead of to the Eastern Church, 
thereby, in all probability, saving the Magyars from, degeneration to the level of the 
Balkan races, and from ultimate absorption in the ocean of Slavdom. 

"Civilization, such as it was, was purely Magyar, and all governmental institu- 
tions were directly developed from the germ evolved by the Magyar national genius 
before the great migration westwards. The races imported into Hungary at a later 
date arrived too late to alter accomplished facts even if they had possessed a far 
higher degree of civilization than any of them had in fact attained. What they chiefly 
cared for was freedom to exercise their various religions, and such freedom they re- 
ceived at the hands of Hungary, the land par excellence of religious tolerance. The 
better class aliens received the rights of nobility or became fused in the Magyar 
nation. The inferior elements remained apart, in a condition neither better nor worse 
than that of the great mass of Magyar peasants, and had little or no consciousness 
of distinctive nationality, or power to resist a deliberate policy of magyarisation, had 
such a policy ever entered the heads of the predominant race, which, unfortunately, 
it never did. Unfortunately, for the reason that successive Habsburgs were enabled 
to utilize the forces of ignorance for the purposes of their traditional policy of divide 
ut imperes — of centralization and absolutism. For the existence of hostility to the 
Magyar idea, tentative and embryonic before 1848, the Magyars have to thank, in the 
first place, their own consciousness of a superiority which made deliberate magyar- 
isation superfluous, and, in the second place, the Habsburg connection. There never 
has been any recognized citizenship in Hungary but Magyar citizenship. Though 
from time to time the Habsburgs encouraged the separatistic tendencies of the Serb, 
the Croat, the Saxon, and the Slovak, the fact remains that from the time of St. 
Stephen to the present day there has been and is no territory in Hungary but the 
territory of the Sacred Crown. Austria made a last attempt to produce a mongrel 
federalism in Hungary in 1861, and now itself suffers from the poison of particularism 
and nationalistic antagonism which the Habsburgs so long tried to infuse into Hungary 
for their own purposes. 

"Nothing can be more misleading than the majority of the maps which purport to 
show the geographical distribution of the constituent races of Hungary. The broad, 
uniform smudges of color which indicate that this part is Magyar, this Rumanian, this 
Servian, this Slovak, and so on, and serve as a text for the disquisitions of the 
prophets of federalism, obscure the fact that the various races are so intermingled in 
all parts of the country, and so interspersed with Magyars, that it is impossible to 

15 



effect clear-cut geographical subdivisions for federalists purposes such as are possible 
in Bohemia, where the country is peopled by only two races, the Germans and the 
Czechs, between whom the lines of demarcation are comparatively easily drawn. A 
glance at the map appended to the recent book of Mr. Ernest Baloghy (A Magyar 
Kultura es a Nemzetisegek, Budapest, 1908) would do more to disperse erroneous 
notions as to racial distribution than many pages of statistics. Minute squares of 
color, showing the interpenetration of the nationalities, replace the familiar broad 
smudges, and the result bears as much resemblance to the ordinary enthnographical 
map of Hungary as a pheasant's plumage does to the tricolor. The great central 
plain of the Danube and the Tisza is almost solidly Magyar, as is the eastern part of 
Transylvania, elsewhere, except in the Serbo-Croatian district south of the Szava, the 
patchwork diversity of color points an unmistakable moral — the impossibility of a 
territorial subdivision for purposes of local autonomy, which would not result in the 
subjection of Magyar and German intelligence to inferior types, whose sole claim to 
political differentiation lies in the fact that they speak a bastard variety of the lan- 
guages of more important races. The Magyar element is wanting in not one of 413 
electoral divisions; the German only in 37. Slovaks are absent from 211, Rumanians 
from 235, Croatians from 344, Servians from 351. Ruthenes are to be found in 57 
divisions, and fragments of other races in no less than 360. As regards the eighteen 
divisions of what Brote and other agitators regard as Rumania irredenta — Transyl- 
vania and Hungary up to the Tisza, the Rumanians are in an actual majority in only 
eleven; Magyars and Germans form over 37 per cent of the population; and in no 
single district in which the Rumanians are in the majority is there an admixture of 
less than eleven per cent of other nationalities. Though the Magyars constitute no 
more than 54 1/4 per cent of the whole population of Hungary proper, they are more 
than three times as numerous as the numerically strongest nationality, whereas the 
German population of Austria forms no more than 38 1/3 per cent of the inhabitants 
of the hereditary provinces. Between the subordinate races there is no cohesion or 
solidarity; the Magyar is the only binding element. Panslavism, Pangermanism, and 
Panrumanism, have alternated from time to time, and in every case the source of 
agitation was to be found outside the limits of Hungary. Rumanians and Slovaks 
have nothing in common. The Rumanian hates the Servian, and the Servian the 
Rumanian. 

"The German settlements are too scattered for it to be possible to carve out a 
characteristically German territory not permeated with Magyar, or Slovak, or Ruman- 
ian elements, are too far removed from Germany to dream of union therewith, and 
too good Hungarian citizens to wish such union were possible. The Germans of Zips 
fought in Rak6czy's army, stood side by side with the Magyars in the fight for freedom 
in 1848, and prayed for the restoration of the Hungarian Constitution — the sole guar- 
antee of their liberties. The Transylvanian Germans are less disposed than those of 
Zips to forget their origin, but considerations of selfpreservation must compel them 
to ally themselves with the Magyars against the numerically preponderant, but educa- 
tionally inferior, Rumanians An inferior civilization cannot swallow up a 

superior one. 

"The Slovaks in the north-western part of Hungary are more compact than most 
of the nationalities, but they are on too low a plane to be able to stand alone. In the 
north-east they are mixed up with Magyars and Germans who would never submit to 
the domination of an inferior race which has never done anything for its adopted 
country or for itself. According to Hunfalvy, the great authority on the nationalities 
of Hungary, the Slovaks, so far from being aboriginal inhabitants, are of Czech- 
Moravian origin and wandered into Hungary in the fifteenth century. They had no 
conception of a separate national existence before 184S, when, as the author of the 
petition to Francis Joseph stated, they awoke from their sleep of nine hundred years' 
duration. There was no Slovak language, only a Czech patois. Not until 1850 was 
there a Slovak grammar. In 1862 a society, the Matica Slovenska, was formed for the 
purpose of fostering the Slovak literature and promoting the use of the Slovak lan- 
guage — a task which was complicated by the fact that both literature and language 
had first to be invented. There are no scientific Slovak writings, and even the books 
in use in 326 schools in which the language of instruction is Slovak are Czech. The 

_ 



creation of an independent Slovakia is unthinkable, and Slovak autonomy, implying 
the subordination of Magyar and German intelligence to mere numerical superiority, 
would be intolerable. Such Slovaks as wish for a change desire fusion with the 
Czechs or are tarred with the brush of Panslvism. The very existence of a Slovak 
question, of a Slovak nationality, is a proof that the Magyars have not been guilty 
of undue interference with the natural development of subordinate races whose sepa- 
ratists tendencies, devoid of historical justification, are the artificial production of 
the traditional Habsburg policy, and of the times in which we live. 

"Servian autonomy is equally inconceivable. The Serbs of Hungary proper, less 
than half a million strong, are to be found in considerable numbers only in four 
counties. Elsewhere they are numerically unimportant, and provided that their eccles- 
iastical autonomy is respected, have no more wish for a separate political existence 
than they have for reunion with the inferior civilization of their congeners in Servia, 
the limits of whose capacity for orderly self-government are sufficiently notorious. 
(The story of the member of the Skupstchina who asked, "Who is this Mr. Budget of 
whom they talk so much?" is presumably well known.) 

"For centuries the Rumanians of Hungary had no notion that they could boast a 
Roman origin. Not until they turned to Roman Catholicism did they conceive the 
idea that they were anything but what they are — Balkan Slavs whose remote ancestors 
were more or less Latinized by contact with the Roman colonial forces. It would 
indeed be remarkable if a Roman army of occupation had left no illegitimate memen- 
toes of its stay in the country, but what percentage of Roman blood is likely to be 
traceable in its descendants after a nomad existence of over a thousand years in the 
Balkan Peninsula? There is not a particle of evidence to show that the Rumanians 
were already domiciled in Transylvania when the Magyars arrived there. As we have 
seen, the theory of a settled political existence in a permanently Romanised Dacia is 
a late invention of Sinkai and his followers. The idea of a uniform, united, Rumanian 
nation never occurred to anyone before 1848, and even after that date the ideas of 
Bishop Siaguna, the prophet of Rumanian union, went no further than a demand of 
local self-government and of ecclesiastical autonomy for the Rumanians of Transyl- 
vania. The notion of a greater Rumania was not yet conceived. Majorescu, the chief 
of Siaguna's immediate followers and imitators, went a step further and demanded 
the union of all Rumanians in Transylvania, Bessarabia, and Bukovina under Austrian 
hegemony, and with the benevolent support of the German Confederation. By the 
peace of Paris, Russia's protectorate over Moldavia and Wallachia came to an end, 
and part of Bessarabia was incorporated in Moldavia. Later, the Rumanians were 
rewarded for their action in saving Russia from a fiasco at Plevna by the creation of 

a Rumanian Kingdom and by the loss of Bessarabia The irredentist agitation 

■might just as well be bugun in Bessarabia instead of in Hungary, except for the fact 
that Russia has a short way of dealing with inconvenient propagandists, and that the 
Magyars err on the side of excessive tolerance. The Rumanians see a justification 
and an example in Italy's struggle for union, oblivious of the fact that in that cas^ the 
fight was for re-union; whereas there never was a greater Rumania, united or dis- 
united, that the scattered Rumanians never conceived the idea of a common origin till 
a few years ago, and that the country has yet to be discovered which can boast with 
certainty of being the cradle of the Moldavo-Wallachians or Transylvanian Vlachs. 
.... There is no justification for the Rumanian demands; no recurrence to a past 
of Rumanian unity based on common history, on distinctive civilization, or on the 
right of prior occupation. As Beksics says, an Italian claim to Provence and a Russian 
claim to Brandenburg and Berlin on the ground that they were once occupied by 
Slavs would be no more absurd from the historical point of view. As regards the 
demand for Rumanian control of Transylvania and of Hungary up to the Tisza, it is 
to be observed that the Rumanians are in an actual minority, forming about 40 per 
cent of the population; so whatever justification it may possess from other points of 
view, it has none from that of mere numbers." 

"But history, wealth, and education are of no importance in the eyes of sepa- 
ratists agitators. As regards education, the Rumanians of Hungary are on a lower 



plane than any constituent race. In 1890, of Rumanian males, only 19.89 per cent 
could read and write their own language; of females, only 8.19. According to Baloghy, 
in 1907, 86 per cent were entirely illiterate, and it is absurd to suggest that such a 
race is fit for autonomy, or could be politically self-sufficient. The agitators would 
reply that the low percentage of literates is due to Magyar oppression and obscurant- 
ism. Let us examine this allegation. In 1S80, 5.71 per cent of Rumanians could speak 
the Magyar language; in 1890 the figure had risen to 6.95, an increase of 1% per cent 
in ten years, which hardly bears out the statement that the Rumanians are being 
robbed of their language and compulsorily magyarized. According to a favorite lie, 
intended for foreign consumption, Law xviii. of 1879, which made Magyar a compul- 
sory subject of instruction, made it the compulsory medium of instruction in all 
schools, and the Rumanians were consequently deprived of the means of learning 
their own language. What are the facts? In 1881 there were 2781 elementary schools 
in which Rumanian was the sole language of instruction, and only 322 in which both 
Rumanian and Magyar teaching was given. In 1892 the number of purely Rumanian 
schools had risen to 3289, and the Magyar-Rumanian to 364 — a 9 per cent increase in 
favor of the Rumanian language. The fact should be noted that though the Ruman- 
ians of Hungary are on a lower educational level than any other nationality, there 
is one place where the darkness is still more intense than in Transylvania, namely 
the Mecca of the irredentists, Rumania proper, where only 13 per cent of the popu- 
lation can read and write, and only 18 per cent of the children of the age of instruc- 
tion go to school. The Magyars are to blame, not for robbing the nationalities of 
their language, but for not properly carrying out the law of 1879. So recently, as 1897, 
of 3000 Rumanian teachers, more than 500 were ignorant of the language of the 
State, and today, for more than one-quarter of the schools of Hungary the Magyar 
is a non-existent idiom. Darkest Hungary is that part of the country to which 
Brote assigns an essentially Rumanian character. The commercial capacity of the 
inhabitants is such as might be expected — it is commensurate with their intellectual 
abilities. But for the existence of trifling cottage industries, it might be said that the 
manufacturing arts are unknown to the Rumanians. According to the official return 
of 1890, there was not one Rumanian manufacturer in all Hungary who gave em- 
ployment to as many as twenty workmen 

"What were the sins of which the Magyars were guilty towards the Rumanians 
which justified the actions of the latter in 1S48? To have admitted them to a footing 
of religious equality, and to have put them on the same level as regards political 
rights and the right to own land as Magyars themselves. Before that date the 
Rumanian common people were no worse off than the vast majority of the dominant 
race which had no political rights and could not own real property. Unfit for free- 
dom, it was not until they were free that they rose against their liberators 

"Deak regarded the regularisation of Hungary's position as regards the nation- 
alities as almost as important as the regularisation of its relations with Austria. 
Hungary, he said, was 'determined to do everything that could be done to remove 
misunderstanding short of territorial disintegration and the sacrifice of independ- 
ence', and to produce a fusion of interests and a feeling of solidarity between all 
Hungarian citizens whatever their origin might be. Law xliv. of 1868 was an honest 
attempt to satisfy the legitimate desires of the nationalities, even at the risk of 
infringing the rights of the paramount race. As usual the Magyars erred by taking 
insufficient care of their own interests. The fundamental error of Deak, and the 
law of 1868, was that it protected alien dialects, but failed to protect the rights of 
the language of the Magyar State. It would have been more reasonable if the Legis- 
lature, instead of making weak concessions to the nationalities in the hope that they 
would the more appreciate the privileges of Hungarian citizenship, had made a 
knowledge of the language of State a condition precedent to the enjoyment of the 
civic rights. If this had been done, and if the Magyar language had been made an 
obligatory subject of instruction in all schools in 1S68, its use would have become 
general in the present, second, generation 

"Every nationality, Deak said, has the right to facilities for the education of its 
children in its own language — a right respect for which is carried to an absurd length 
in the Hungary of today, which spends 65 per cent of the sum annually spent on 

18"" 



primary education on schools in which the language of instruction is not the language 
of the State 

"So far as Hungary, and the nationalities of Hungary are concerned, the best 
criticism of Springer's scheme of federalisation is to be found in his own words: 
•Hungary is geographically the most concentrated of lands— it is an ideal of concen- 
tration which will mock all attempts at political subdivision.' Every nationality 
which tries to carve out a separate national State for itself will immediately have 

all the other seven nationalities against it' It has become more and more 

evident that in the realms of the Habsburgs the Magyars .... are almost. alone in 
possessing something higher than a parish patriotism, and alone possess the consti- 
tutional, parliamentary instinct. It is, therefore, a matter of general interest that 
nothing should take place which might tend to the weakening or dismemberment of 
Hungary. It seems that Palacky's much-quoted phrase requires re-editing. If there 
were no Hungary it would be necessary to invent one, were it possible to do so. 

"There is a much-quoted saying to the effect that the Magyar is blind to every- 
thing that he does not wish to see. 'Damn it, sir,* said Nelson at Copenhagen, as he 
put his telescope to his sightless eye in order to be able to say that he had not 
seen the signal of recall, 'a man has a plain right to be blind sometimes'— and most 
of all when the future of his nation is at stake. It is also said that the hegemony 
cf the Magyars is maintained, and can be maintained, only by artificial means. It is 
untrue. Beksics has justly remarked that the Magyars might well despair if national 
unity depended on grammatical unity. It is divergence of civilisation, not grammatical 
differences, which prevents the coalescence into a nation of heterogeneous elements. 
The history of centuries is the history of the abortive attempt to impress the Ger- 
man stamp on Hungary, in which there has been, and is, only one absorbent civili- 
sation — the Magyar. The rebirth of the Magyar idea in some respects dates only from 
the day when, some seventy-five years ago, Stephen Szechenyi first addressed the 
Diet in its proper language; but what a change in the relative positions of Hungary 
and Austria those few years have brought about, in spite of intervening Vilagos. 
Three-quarters of a century are but as one day in the history of the development of 
.a nation. In Guizot's words: 'Quelle est dans la vie des peuples la grande cause qui 
n'a pas eprouve de cruels revers, passe par de tristes alternatives et mis des siecles 

a triompher? Dieu vend cher aux hommes le progres et le succes Que n'en a-t- 

il pas coiite a l'Angleterre? Que de revolutions et de reactions! que de temps, de 
sang, et de travail!' The Magyars also have paid the price of progress and success 
in labor and in blood." 



19 



APPENDIX B. 

EXTRACT 

From a Statement made by Mr. Aloysius Kovdcs, LL.D., Secretary of the 
Hungarian Statistical Office, Budapest, to an American newspaper corres- 
pondent as to the authenticity of the Hungarian Census. 

The census takers had been everywhere first of all the teachers, having been 
obliged by the census law to act in that capacity. From the year 1910 we have no 
information, but in 1900 of the 30,650 census takers 15,111 were teachers. In the same 
year the number of all the male teachers in the country was 20,970. Hence three- 
fourths of the teachers had taken part in the enumeration. In 1910 their number 
must have been still greater, on the one hand because the town teachers were also 
obliged to take part, on the other hand because the village notaries have been superin- 
tendents and thus could not act as census takers. In non-Hungarian regions — 
naturally — the census takers were mostly non-Hungarian teachers and clergymen. 

After the assortment of the census material, too, when the results for the indi- 
vidual comimunities were at hand, the Statistical Office has taken special pains to 
obtain in the data of the mother tongue a faithful picture of reality. To this end it 
has compared the data of the single communities with the results of the former 
census, and if the differences were striking, explanations were demanded from the 
respective communal or district authorities. After such informations either the 
data were accepted for true or — as it often happened — the erroneous entries were 
corrected through commissioned officials by consulting the people of the place. The 
correspondence and minute books referring to it may be still inspected. 

Therefore the Statistical Office has done all that was possible to obtain true data 
of the mother tongue. But, in spite of all carefulness and precaution, both at the 
recording and at the elaboration smaller mistakes might have crept in, just as it 
happens in all demographical enrollments — in recording age, occupation, denomination, 
etc. — be it the most perfect census method of the world. It is important, however, to 
notice that such little blunders, being committed for and against, in the last result 
balance each other. 

But the objections brought forth against the authenticity of the census can be 
refuted by the census itself as well as by other records of the Statistical Office. The 
chief objection is against the number of the Hungarians. It is stated that the statis- 
tical number of the Hungarians is put higher than their number in reality is by 
entering everybody who speaks Hungarian into the class of those whose mother tongue 
is Hungarian. This is refuted by the datum of 1,875,789 souls who speak Hungarian 
without having it for their mother tongue. The number of those who know Hun- 
garian is published also (in Magyar Statisztikai Kozlemenyek, Vol. 42) according to 
communities. In this publication anyone can see that the number of those who know 
Hungarian does not agree with the number of those whose mother tongue is Hun- 
garian. Exceptions are only some far out-of-way communities. The above objection 
is refuted also by the data referring to the knowledge of languages. According to the 
detailed results of the census the number of: 

Hungarians knowing German was 1,254,411 

Germans Hungarian " 756,971 

Hungarians " Slovak " 547,136 

Slovaks Hungarian " 417,306 

Hungarians Rumanian " 400,096 

Rumanians " Hungarian " 373,822 

Hungarians " Ruthenian " 49,841 

Ruthenians " Hungarian " 64,915 

Hungarians " Croatian and Servian was 178,508 

Croat, and Serv. " Hungarian was 178,985 

20 ~~ 



Except the German, in the other languages there is but little difference between 
the number of the Hungarians speaking a non-Hungarian tongue and that of the non- 
Hungarians speaking the Hungarian. The number of Hungarians speaking German 
is bigger than the number of Germans speaking Hungarian, because in Hungary- 
German is, to a certain extent, also the language of international and commercial 
intercourse. These figures prove that the languages mutually spoken mutually equal 
each other. That is, supposing the Hungarians speaking also Rumanian to be really 
Rumanians and the Rumanians speaking also Hungarian really to be Hungarians, by 
this their proportions would not change. 

The correctness of the nationalistic data is proved also by the religious census in 
divisions where race and creed are almost identical. In the 15 Transylvania counties 
the denominational and nationalistic statistics in comparison is this: 
There are Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Unitarians and 

Israelites altogether 906,460 — Hungarians 918,217 

Lutherans 229,028 — Germans 234,085 

Greek Catholics and Greek Orientals 1,542,268 — Rumanians 

and others (mostly Gypsies) 1,526,065 

In the division of the confluence of the Tisza and Maros there are: 

Greek Catholics and Greek Orientals together 1,160,581 

Rumanians and Servians together 1,136,284 

In the County of Szilagy there are: 

Greek Catholics and Greek Orientals together 142,542 

Rumanians, Ruthenians, Servians and "others" together 138,280 

Thus the denominational proportions justify the percentages of the nationalities. 
This congruence of the denominational and nationalistic data can be traced and proved 
from community to community. 

In disputing the correctness of the Hungarian census data the Rumanians used to 
refer to their own church lists which are claimed to give a much higher number than 
the official statistics. On this basis it is supposed to find 3,600,000, or even 4 million 
Rumanians in Hungary against the official number of 2,948,000. 

How untenable this claim is can be shown from the work of a distinguished Ru- 
manian author, Nicolae Mazere, Professor at Jassy. M. Mazere in his work "Karta 
Btnografica Transilvanici" of 1909 has drawn an ethnographical map of Transylvania 
according to communities, and, thinking the Hungarian data unreliable, he wished to 
use the church lists. But in the introduction of his work he is compelled to confess 
that "the church lists — the only Rumanian sources at disposal — are entirely impossible 
to use." [Ibidem, p. 12.] After having reviewed the shortcomings of the church lists 
he says: "This I do not write for the sake of mere criticism but in order to prove that 
the church lists can not serve as basis for a scientific work." [lb. p. 13.] Therefore, 
in composing his ethnographical map he follows the records of the official Hungarian 
statistics, and has to confess that "this map will cause some disappointment among 
the Rumanians, because the Rumanians have imagined Transylvania to be far less 
Hungarian." [lb. p. 13.] 

The nationalistic relations of the country are not known to the Statistical Office 
from the census alone. The office gathers informations on the mother tongue yearly 
from demographical papers and from school statistics. These data collected after per- 
sonal declarations confirm in every respect the results of the census, and they are all 
the more reliable as they can be compared in every community with the census data. 
The census gives the following nationalistic percentages: 

Hungarians 54.5 

Germans 10.4 

Slovaks 10.7 

Rumanians 16.1 

Ruthenians 2 • *> 

Croatians * •* 

Servians 2.5 

Others • 2 - 2 

Total 100.0 

~~ 21 * 



In the same census year, in 1910, the proportion of the brides and bridegrooms, 

and of births and deaths according to mother tongue was as follows: 

Bridegrooms Brides Born Alive Died 

Hungarians 54.5 54.1 54.2 51.3 

Germans 10.0 10.4 9.5 9.6 

Slovaks 9.6 9.9 11.6 11.3 

Rumanians 18.3 18.2 16.3 18.9 

Ruthenians 2.3 2.3 2.8 2.7 

Croatians 1.0 1.0 1.2 1.1 

Servians 2.8 2.7 2.8 3.3 

Others 1.5 1.4 1.6 1.8 

Total 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 

These figures reiterated from year to year with but little deviations corroborate 
the nationalistic relations revealed by the census. It must be remembered that the 
discrepancy in comparison to the census results finds its sufficient explanation in the 
different conditions of age, mortality and fecundity, among the different nationalities 
clearly described in the demographical publications of the statistical office. 

Last' we may quote the figures indicating the percentage of the students of ele- 
mentary and repetition schools according to their mother tongue in the school year 

1910-11: 

Hungarians 54 . 8 

Germans 12.2 

Slovaks 13.7 

Rumanians 11 . 8 

Ruthenians 2.4 

Croatians 1.2 

Servians 2.4 

Others 1.5 

Total 100 . 

These figures — of course are influenced by the circumstance that the different 
nationalities send their children into school in different proportions. The data, how- 
ever, are extant in each denomination and in each school; thus they may be compared 
in every community with the official data. The percentage of the Rumanians among 
the schoolgoers is smaller than in the population. But it is well known that the 
schooling of the Rumanians is backward also in Rumania. 

After all, the Hungarian Statistical Office is willing at any time to submit its pre- 
cise method and its careful and conscientious employment in the nationalistic enroll- 
ment to the criticism of the International Statistical Institution— alone competent to 

judge in the case. 




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